Wide concerns among the media and the public have led the Ombudsman to launch an investigation into Official Information Act practices in the public sector.
The Herald may have been entitled to form the view that departmental rules and guidelines, including requirements for consultation, do open the way to political influence and interference in information releases.
But the documents provided to the Herald, and referred to in the article, do not grant the minister the freedom to change whatever is released.
Therefore the part-sentence included in the article is factually incorrect and the Council upholds the complaint on that basis.

Press Council members considering the complaint were Sir John Hansen, Chris Darlow, Tim Beaglehole, Liz Brown, Jenny Farrell, Sandy Gill, Marie Shroff, Vernon Small, Mark Stevens and Stephen Stewart.
John Roughan took no part in the consideration of this complaint.

Yesterday the NZ Herald displayed its cowardice inÂ theÂ face of Islamic terror by refusing to show images of Mohammed.

They claimed it was a long standing policy but inquiries by WOBH show that the policy has been in place a mere 6 years.

When contacted editor Shayne Currie said:

Weâ€™ve paid careful consideration to religious imagery since the controversy and backlash surrounding the Danish cartoons of the prophet Muhammad in 2006.

The examples youâ€™ve highlighted below are news stories about billboards put up by a mainstream Christian denomination â€“ our policy does not prevent reporting on debates within faith communities.

The policy as stated by The NZ Herald article is:

The Heraldâ€™s longstanding policy is not to publish imagery designed to cause offence to religious or ethnic communities.

It is not a response to the views of extremists or jihadists, which the Herald of course opposes, but to respect the sensibilities of mainstream believers.

The NZ Herald seems ok with insulting Christians, but not Muslims.

It also seems that presenting offensive imagery of other cultures is ok as well with this story from December last year about the case of a Kiwi bar managerÂ on charges in Burma for using an offensive image of Buddha in his bar advertisements.

The NZ Herald has finally published their reasoning for refusing to publish the Charlie Hebdo front cover.

The New Zealand Herald won’t be publishing.

The Herald’s longstanding policy is not to publish imagery designed to cause offence to religious or ethnic communities.

It is not a response to the views of extremists or jihadists, which the Herald of course opposes, but to respect the sensibilities of mainstream believers.

Fairfax publications The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age published the cover late in the day, while Daily Mail Australia opted against running the image, a decision made by its London head office.

Except their excuse is rank hypocrisy.

Exhibit A:

Maybe their policy is more recent than 2010…but they did say longstanding policy…is 5 years longstanding when the Herald has been publishing since 1863. I should have thought that 5 years in a history of 152 year was but a blip, certainly not longstanding. Â Read more »

But what does the NZ Herald do despite claiming solidarity with Charlie Hebdo?

They capitulate. Publishing cartoons but none of the ones deemed so offensive to easily outraged Islamic fanatics.

A reader notes:

I noticed today that the Herald had published cartoons fromÂ Charlie Hebdo.

I was surprised at their bravery as most MSM are afraidÂ to publish these due to the fear of Islam. I then looked at them andÂ noticed that their were no cartoons about Islam in their selection andÂ many were against the anti-immigration movement.

Surely they shouldÂ have shown a varied selection of their cartoons including anti-IslamicÂ ones?

While Matt Nippert and David ‘Tainted’ Fisher are lapping up the adulation of the script kiddies in Wellington there is yet another article about the failure of journalistic ethics, where it appears that journalists are quite happy to rely on criminals to their reporting for them.

These so-called investigative journalists are even still in touch with the hacker of my emails (if tweets from the Kiwicon are accurate)…so much for their journalistic integrity and they claims at being investigative journalists.

Because after every outlet, from Perez Hilton to Jezebel, called the hack, leak and publishing of nude photos of celebrities, including Kate Upton and Jennifer Lawrence, a crime, none of them seem to have any problem publishing the spoils of the Sony hack, particularly the many private conversations of its co-chairman Amy Pascal.

As Marc Andreessen put it on Twitter last week: â€śHackers steal a companyâ€™s email files. No bad acts by company revealed. Press prints emails. Journalism, or federal crime?â€ť

Thatâ€™s exactly right. Itâ€™s the question we should be asking here.

How on earth do all these outletsâ€”including The New York Times no lessâ€”justify printing or covering the contents of private emails obtained through clearly criminal acts? And not only that, but many in the media consider it real journalism and, in one case, criticize Sony for â€śchoosing to stay silentâ€ť for months before telling anyone theyâ€™d been a victim?

â€śThereâ€™s really no other way to explain the horrifying lack of empathy so many of them show, time and time again, when women of all levels of fame are treated like they exist to be bullied and mocked.â€ť

Following last night’s wildly successful book launch at the Auckland Central Library for Madmen: Inside the Weirdest Election Campaign Ever – 100 people in attendance, including Cactus Kate, Guyon Espiner, a homeless man in a top hat, Ant Timpson, Shayne Carter, two elderly people in advanced stages of dementia, Deborah Hill-Cone, Karl Puschmann, a man whoÂ displayed a dozen pieces of paper which he had thrown coffee onto, waited til the stains dried, and presented them as art, Gary Steel, Shayne Currie, Toby Manhire, Miriamo Kamo and her adorable three-year-old daughter, etcÂ – I came home to find an email from Whale Oil.

Actually, just to correct Steve and look for Nicky Hager, Cactus KateÂ went along. Â Braunias confronted her at the entranceÂ and said he didn’t invite her to which she replied “we often get what we don’t ask for” and proceed to sashay in the door to find the bar. Â Nicky was nowhere in sight.